Section:GDN 1N PaGe:18 Edition Date:190812 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 11/8/2019 18:49 cYanmaGentaYellowb
- The Guardian Monday 12 Aug ust 2019
(^18) National
Say sorry to Liverpool, mayor tells PM
after off er to host powerhouse rejected
Helen Pidd
North of England editor
The mayor of Liverpool has challenged
Boris Johnson to travel to the city and
apologise directly for once publishing
an article claiming drunken fans were
partly responsible for the Hillsborough
tragedy, after it was reported the gov-
ernment was reluctant to hold a major
conference there.
Joe Anderson said yesterday that he
had off ered to host what the govern-
ment has billed as “the biggest ever
northern powerhouse conference”
on 13 September after Sheffi eld was
unable to fi nd a suitable venue. But his
off er of the Arena and Convention Cen-
tre, which hosted last year’s Labour
party conference, was turned down.
It is understood that the prime min-
ister has not been formally invited to
the conference, and No 10 rejects any
suggestion he was blocking or delaying
the decision. But with barely a month
to go, it has still not been confi rmed
where the conference will take place.
The report adds insult to injury,
after Johnson chose Manchester as
the venue for his fi rst speech as prime
minister last month, using it to back a
new high-speed rail link between that
city and Leeds without making any
mention of Liverpool. It was a “short-
sighted omission”, said Anderson,
who said more people get the train
between Liverpool and Manchester
than between Manchester and Leeds.
Asked if Johnson would get a “warm
welcome” were he to visit Liverpool,
Anderson said: “He’d get a hot wel-
come. It wouldn’t be warm.”
Anderson said Liverpudlians had
not forgotten the editorial Johnson
published when he was editor of the
Spectator in 2004 , which claimed the
people of Liverpool were “hooked on
grief ” and blamed “drunken fans”
for contributing to the Hillsborough
disaster of 1989 in which 96 people
were killed.
The Liverpool Echo originally
reported the city was being overlooked
to host September’s Convention of
the North. “There is a feeling in the
local halls of power that government
simply doesn’t want to come here,” it
said. Shortly before Johnson entered
Downing Street, it ran the headline
“Liverpool won’t forget what Prime
Minister hopeful Boris Johnson did”.
During his fi rst prime minister’s
questions, Johnson refused to apolo-
gise for the remarks when reminded by
Liverpool Labour MP Maria Eagle. In
2012 , when mayor of London, Johnson
said he “bitterly regretted” the off ence
caused, but insisted he didn’t write the
off ending article.
Shortly before Johnson became
prime minister, the Ministry of
Housing, Communities and Local
Government put out a press release
heralding the second cross-party Con-
vention of the North, which would
bring together civic and business lead-
ers with council leaders and elected
mayors from northern England’s
Northern Irish doctors’ group to
fi ght abortion pill prosecutions
Henry McDonald
A new pro-choice doctors’ organisa-
tion has been established in Northern
Ireland to defend physician/patient
confi dentiality over abortion pills.
Doctors for Choice Northern Ire-
land opposes healthcare professionals
being forced to report women and
girls who procure abortion pills to
the police.
A mother faces a criminal prose-
cution this year for buying abortion
pills online for her then 15-year-old
daughter. The woman, who cannot
be named to protect her daughter’s
identity, faces two charges of unlaw-
fully procuring and supplying abortion
pills in 2013.
In its fi rst statement, Doctors for
Choice said no one should be pros-
ecuted for buying or using abortion
pills. “We believe that doctors have
a duty of care and confi dentiality to
their patients and do not believe that
healthcare professionals should report
patients to the police for taking abor-
tion pills. Patients should be able to
trust their doctor to respect their
confi dentiality and act in their best
interests.
‘‘The current legislation puts doc-
tors in a diffi cult position and erodes
and undermines the integrity of the
doctor-patient relationship,” the
lobby group said. A spokes man said
recent prosecutions and referrals to
the prosecution service of women and
girls who procure abortion pills could
deter some from seeking urgent emer-
gency medical help.
“ The current law is untenable in
that it is a barrier to compassionate
care and can deter patients from
attending accident and emergency
promptly.”
Northern Ireland’s strict anti-
abortion regime is set to change if, by
22 October, there has been no return
to devolved government in Belfast.
The Commons voted by 332 to 99
last month to support legislation pro-
posed by Labour MP Stella Creasy to
extend abortion rights in Britain to
Northern Ireland where, until then,
the 1967 Abortion Act did not apply.
The only way left to block abortion
reform would be for the restoration
of power sharing and the local par-
ties taking back control of legislation
dealing with issues like abortion and
same-sex marriage. The largest party
in the last power sharing Stormont
assembly, the Democratic Unionists,
used parliamentary vetoes to block
abortion reform under devolution.
Creasy and her allies pushed for-
ward the abortion reform legislation
in July because the Stormont assem-
bly had not sat for more than two years.
Pro-choice MPs such as Creasy
argued that Northern Irish women
could no longer aff ord to wait for local
politicians to resurrect power sharing,
and then possibly agree to reform the
province’s strict anti-abortion regime.
Until the law changes in the autumn
doctors and medical professionals in
Northern Ireland could be prosecuted
for failing to report patients who use
abortion pills.
What the Spectator said
In 2004 Boris Johnson, who
while Spectator editor was also a
shadow minister for the arts and
vice-chairman of the Tory party,
ran an editorial after the death of
Kenneth Bigley, an engineer from
Liverpool who was killed in Iraq
after being held hostage.
It said: “The deaths of more
than 50 Liverpool football
supporters at Hillsborough in 1989
was undeniably a greater tragedy
than the single death, however
horrible, of Mr Bigley; but that is
no excuse for Liverpool’s failure
to acknowledge, even to this day,
Boris Johnson
was editor of the
Spectator in 2004
towns, cities and city regions to “speak
with one voice”.
The Ministry of Housing, Commu-
nities and Local Government, which
announced the conference last month,
would not say where it would be held ,
adding the matter of the venue was
for the organisers, the Northern Pow-
erhouse 11, a group of northern local
enterprise partnership chairs.
▼ The mayor of
Liverpool, Joe
Anderson, and
the Lord Mayor,
Christine Banks,
remember the
Hillsborough
victims
PHOTOGRAPH:
ELEANOR BARLOW/PA
the part played in the disaster by
drunken fans at the back of the
crowd who mindlessly tried to
fi ght their way into the ground that
Saturday afternoon.”
‘Boris Johnson would
get a hot welcome.
It wouldn’t be warm’
Joe Anderson
Mayor of Liverpool
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